I’ve been deliberately avoiding blog tours this year (you can see why here), but Alainna at Orion knows me only too well and when she told me I’d love The Moments by Natalie Winter and asked me if I’d like to participate in the blog tour I simply couldn’t decline. I’m so grateful to Alainna for inviting me to take part and sending me a copy of The Moments in return for an honest review.

The Moments will be published by Orion on 8th August 2019 and is available for purchase through the links here.

The Moments

Life is made up of countless moments. Moments that make us who we are. But what if they don’t unfold the way they’re supposed to…?

What if you get on the wrong bus, or don’t speak to the right person at a party, or stay in a job that isn’t for you? Will you miss your one chance at happiness? Or will happiness find you eventually, when the moment is right?

Meet Matthew and Myrtle. They have never really felt like they fitted – in life or with anyone else. But they are meant to be together – if only they didn’t keep missing each other.

A heart-breaking and compelling story about family and friendship. A story about love and loss. A story about life.

My Review of The Moments

Misfits Matthew and Myrtle would probably be perfect for one another – if only they could meet.

Oh my goodness yes! The Moments is completely wonderful. I absolutely adored every moment of reading it and hated it when I had finished because I couldn’t bear to let go of two of the most delightful, quirky and wonderful people I’ve ever met in fiction. I was in love with both Matthew and Myrtle. They truly are the Everyman and Everywoman of the twenty first century; too frequently settling for second best and hankering after something, or someone, else in their lives just out of reach, as so many of us do. Life simply happens through the moments of the title and so much of the action made me think of times in my own life, or lives of those I know, that it seems Natalie Winter has looked into the soul of humanity and crafted it into a touching, frequently funny and completely enchanting story, about two warm, vivid and endearing people, that is just perfect.

By rights I shouldn’t like the structure of The Moments as it swings alternately between Myrtle and Matthew because I often find dual narratives irritating. Not in this case. Natalie Winter crafts them so beautifully it is as if they are a double helix of love and life. The way in which the author brings Matthew and Myrtle so tantalisingly close and yet not quite meeting is almost too much to bear. I think it’s the use of a continuous present tense with its suggestion of future potential that helps make the story so impactful and successful too.

Parts of The Moments bring intense joy to the reader, and parts bring deep sadness. When I finished the book I felt as if I’d lived every one of those moments with Myrtle and Matthew and I wouldn’t have missed a single one. It’s no exaggeration to say that reading The Moments made me glad to be me, to be alive, and to have led the life I have – good and bad bits included. In The Moments Natalie Winter shows us fundamental truths about humanity and life so that I feel my life has been enhanced by her words.

It’s just too difficult to express how much I enjoyed reading The Moments because it’s such an uplifting, heat-warming story. Choose your own superlative to apply to this glorious book – you’ll be right!

About Natalie Winter

Natalie Winter is from Hertfordshire and has worked as a content editor in various media industries for the last fourteen years. She has lived in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, among other places, and now currently resides in Bristol with her scruffy rescue dog.

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